rule out

Questions about rule out

What does rule out mean?

rule out means "make impossible, especially beforehand". That is the primary sense; the word has 3 in total, listed in full on this page.

What is another word for rule out?

Close synonyms include preclude, close out, rule in, eliminate, winnow out. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is rule out a common word?

rule out is banded "Familiar" — widely understood, used when the subject calls for it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.